Our Kind of Love

by Victoria Purman

  Her eyes fluttered shut. Start feeling? Maybe the problem was that she was feeling too much. Something about being down here in Middle Point, being around Joe and the fresh air and the sun and away from her real life seemed to have unleashed something primal in her. And it was unfamiliar and scary in the light of the morning.

  Anna sighed. ‘I did that. When I came down to Middle Point for a wedding and look what happened.’

  ‘You learned to surf and you had amazing sex. I’m not seeing a downside.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. You got to see me naked.’

  ‘And you’re unbelievable.’

  ‘You’re not so bad yourself.’

  Joe kissed her again, traced his gentle lips from the tip of her shoulder to the nape of her neck, where his heat met her soft skin. She shivered and felt the connection in every part of her body.

  ‘This doesn’t have to be complicated,’ he said, his lips a whisper in her ear.

  ‘I don’t want complicated either, but I think it is what it is.’

  ‘How? We’re clearly both single—’

  Anna scoffed.

  ‘Emotionally speaking,’ Joe clarified.

  ‘With way too much baggage,’ she added.

  ‘Hell, anyone over twenty-one has baggage these days.’

  Anna chuckled and turned her head, met his lips right there at her ear and threw all her heart into that kiss. He was right there, keeping up.

  ‘Can I just use you for sex one more time?’ she teased, biting his lower lip.

  Joe pushed her down on the bed and them moved over her, his strong body so ready. She lifted her hips to meet him and he slid inside her with one thrust. Anna closed her eyes and gasped.

  ‘As many times as you fucking well like, sweetheart,’ Joe said, heat and desire and laughter on his lips crushing against hers, and she almost came on the spot.

  CHAPTER

  30

  Lizzie almost had her nose pressed up against the two-storey window that formed the front wall of the Ry and Julia’s glass palace.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Julia demanded from her comfortable position on the white leather sofa, her swollen ankles competing with her roiling stomach for the prize as most uncomfortable feature of her pregnancy so far.

  ‘Anna just tried to put her travel bag in the boot but Joe took if from her hand and did it himself.’

  ‘How gallant,’ Julia said. ‘Your brother does have some manners after all. And?’

  ‘He shut the boot and now they seem to be talking.’ Lizzie turned to Julia. ‘What do you think happened last night?’

  Julia tapped a forefinger on her chin, glanced quickly from left to right. ‘Not that I’m keeping tabs on her, but Anna definitely spent the night somewhere else. She came back half an hour ago – alone – gathered up her things and gave me a big hug. She wanted me to make sure I thanked everyone for a fantastic weekend, which I promised to do. There was something about her. She looked different.’

  ‘What do you mean “different”?’ Lizzie peered out to the spot where Anna’s hot red sports car was parked on the place where the lawn met the road. ‘You’ve gotta be more specific, Jools.’

  ‘She had the dazed and confused I-can’t-believe-I’ve-just-had-great-sex look.’

  Anna lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the bright sunshine and watched Joe close the boot of her car. She leaned against the driver’s side door, her car keys in her hand, grateful for the distraction of their jangle against her thigh. He ambled back to her, his hands in his jeans, that one eyebrow arched and his denim-blue eyes focused on her like he was a straight-A student and she was an exam paper. She sighed in total, fuzzy-brained, fully shagged satisfaction and couldn’t stop the slow smile forming on her lips. One look at Joe and she would lay money on it that the sexy-as-hell grin he was giving her hadn’t left his face since the minute she’d woken up this morning.

  He would definitely have face ache tomorrow. Hell, there were parts of her that would be throbbing for a week.

  There was something she wanted to say to him, to this man standing in front of her, her partner in crime, her surf instructor. But ‘thanks’ didn’t seem to be enough.

  ‘Safe drive,’ he said, keeping a distance between them. ‘It’s always busy on the road back to Adelaide on the last day of a long weekend. Traffic might be slow once you get past the overpass at McLaren Vale.’

  ‘Thanks for the tip,’ Anna replied. ‘Good luck tomorrow at the pub.’

  Joe tipped his head up to the sky and laughed. ‘Ah yes, my brilliant new career. I would ask you to kiss me for luck, but I think we have an audience.’

  ‘They’re watching us, aren’t they?’ Anna asked, keeping her eyes on Joe instead of glancing back to the house. It gave her the excuse to stare at him just a little while longer before she jumped in her car and drove back to Adelaide and her old life. Would she go back to the old her, too?

  ‘My sister and Julia? What do you reckon?’ Inside his pockets, Joe flexed his fingers, trying to fight off the temptation to reach out and touch her one more time before she left. But whatever he wanted to do, and he wanted to do it almost more than breathing, he didn’t want to do it right out here on the street. Whatever he and Anna had was complicated and undefined and private.

  They stared at each other for a long while, competing for who was wearing the dreamiest grin.

  ‘Well …’ Anna’s voice trailed off into the wind buffeting up from the beach. It played with her hair, flicking it around her face like black strands of fabric.

  ‘Don’t make it complicated, Anna.

  ‘I know, I know.’ Anna looked to the road, the grassed dunes and to the white-capped waves. Out there, in the water, was almost the exact spot where she’d surfed the day before. Anna Morelli, surfer. Would anyone believe her if she told them? ‘I need to think. I’m not used to this.’

  ‘Just don’t think about it too long. You’re not that bad, but I really think you could do with some intensive instruction.’

  ‘You mean the surfing?’

  He took half a step closer. ‘No. I don’t mean the surfing.’

  Anna laughed and her face erupted with it. Her laughing eyes, her incredible smile. Damn it. She was spectacular.

  ‘See you, Joe.’ Anna dipped her eyes to the roadway and then pulled her door open and slid expertly into the low driver’s seat. With a turn of the key her car roared into life with a throbbing vroom that echoed the sound of Joe’s pounding heartbeat.

  Joe tapped on the glass and Anna wound down the window.

  ‘I just wanted to remind you,’ he said. ‘Third lesson and sixth orgasm are complimentary.’

  ‘Is she driving away?’ Julia tried to stand, but another bout of nausea forced her back down.

  ‘She is. I can’t believe it. There wasn’t even a goodbye kiss. Oh, shit.’ Lizzie’s thumping footsteps on the floor beat a hasty rhythm to the sofa. With a dive she managed to plonk herself down and look completely at ease one second before Joe pushed his way through the front door into the house.

  ‘Hey,’ he called to the two women. ‘Is Ry around?’

  They were each casually flicking through the pages of glossy magazines.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Julia said with a smile. ‘He’s at the pub.’

  ‘Stinkface,’ Lizzie said. ‘Anna on her way back to Adelaide, then?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Joe replied distractedly, pushing his fingers through his hair.

  ‘The traffic will be bad this time of day.’

  ‘Yes, I mentioned that.’

  ‘We don’t know when Anna will be down here again, do we Lizzie?’ Julia threw her best friend a wink over the top of her magazine. ‘My next appointment with her is up in the city. In two weeks, as a matter of fact.’

  Lizzie dropped her magazine into her lap and turned to Joe. ‘Do you know when Anna will be back, Joe? I think the long weekend down here did her the world of good, don’t you?’

  Joe studied his sister and he
r partner in crime. The amateur detectives and evil twins were as transparent as a wet crocheted bikini. He decided to keep them guessing. ‘No, I don’t know when she’ll be back here.’

  ‘Losing your touch,’ Lizzie teased.

  Joe strode to the sofa, leaned over and pressed his hands onto the headrest. Lizzie and Julia looked up at him, all faux innocent. If only.

  Julia laughed. ‘Not even a kiss goodbye, Joe?’

  Joe laughed. ‘Nice try Phryne Fisher and Dottie. But absolutely no fucking comment.’ He straightened, turned on his heel and slammed the door behind him as he left.

  Julia and Lizzie stared at each in wide-eyed shock.

  ‘I think we hit a nerve,’ Lizzie said in disbelief. ‘You think they …?’

  The women raised their hands and high-fived each other.

  CHAPTER

  31

  The next day, Joe arrived home from work at the pub feeling like a total fuckwit. As he pushed through his front door, kicked off his shoes, crossed the carpeted living room, plodded into the shower and turned on the thumping spray while he was still fully clothed, he resolved to never drink beer again.

  When he’d told Lizzie he was up for a job at the Middle Point pub, he figured it would be a piece of piss. A nice little earner to tide him over until the sale of his house in Sydney was complete and he’d heard back from some of the jobs he’d applied for. It would be a simple filler. A time-waster, if you will. He would be that bloke behind the bar who told the best gags and people would gather round while he told inside story after inside story of his time covering the ins and outs of national politics. And he’d observed many a hospitality worker over the years, since he’d probably collectively spent many years in pubs while working as a journalist. A busy Sydney bar looked easy, so a pub in a sleepy coastal town would be like working in a retirement village, right? He’d occasionally have to wipe down the countertop while he was relating a hilarious joke to a customer. Then there would be pouring the odd beer, a sherry or two for the older ladies, and maybe a gin and tonic for someone who wanted to go a little wild and crazy for drinks at 4 p.m. It would be like being at a party every day. Well, not his kind of party specifically, but a party nevertheless. Hanging around, pouring beers and chewing the fat with regular customers who wouldn’t care if he buggered up the froth to beer ratio every once in a while.

  He’d been in fucking la-la land.

  Joe let the pulsing hot water soak through his hair, right into his clothes and down his thighs on to his aching feet. He needed to wash away the smell of yeast and warm beer. It had all been his fault, of course. He was yet to master pouring a beer from the taps – he was too used to cracking the lid off one and sipping it straight from the bottle – and he’d had some kind of beer tap incident where more amber liquid beer sprayed over his hands and shirt and on the bar than made it into a glass.

  He smelled like a brewery. Or a pisshead. What a day.

  During his lunch break, Lizzie had come searching for him, and found him sitting out the back of the pub on a wooden bench, in full sun, trying to dry off. His back was against the rough stone wall, his long legs splayed out in front of him like a tripping hazard, and his chest was angled so the sun hit him right on his damp shirt. He’d closed his eyes and tried not to think about how the hell he’d got here.

  ‘Hey, Joe.’ His sister sat next to him. ‘You’re doing great.’

  He could only shake his head. When he opened his eyes, he could see her teasing grin. ‘You are full of shit, Mosquito.’

  Lizzie crossed one leg over the other, her foot swaying a relaxed rhythm that he watched like it was a metronome.

  ‘A little harder than you thought, huh?’

  ‘Fuck.’ Joe shook his head in amused disbelief. ‘Let me loose on a keyboard and I’m lethal. But give me one of those guns that dispenses the post-mix drinks? Absolutely useless.’

  Lizzie patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. ‘I know it’s not Sydney, but the job is yours for as long as you want it. Give it a week and you’ll get the hang of it, I promise.’

  She stood, clearly knowing him well enough to leave him alone to wallow in self-pity. Lizzie looked around the empty space at the rear of the pub, the area that had come to life over the summer as The Market and which had been the place Ry and Julia had got married.

  ‘There’s a fresh uniform for you in my office if you want it.’

  Joe glanced down at his shirt. ‘No worries. I’m almost dry. Can’t say the same for Shorty and Reg at the bar. Are those blokes here every day?’

  Lizzie folded her arms in front of her and smiled. ‘Every day at three o’clock. They’re like those old blokes from The Muppets, the ones who sit up in the balcony. What were their names?’

  Joe chuckled at the memory of all the times he and Lizzie had laid flat out on their stomachs on the shag pile carpet, watching those old movies on VCR. ‘Statler and Waldorf.’

  ‘Yeah, those two. Their wives died within a month of each other a couple of years back. They don’t have the Rotary Club or Apex or the church or bingo. They have this place.’

  Joe thought about that for a while.

  ‘Can I get you anything? A beer, maybe?’

  Joe laughed. ‘No, I’m fine. And Lizzie?’

  She turned, stopped just before she was about to pull open the back door.

  ‘Yeah, Joe?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She’d ruffled his hair and then turned to go inside.

  Joe reached out an arm in the small bathroom and pulled a towel from the bamboo hook on the back of the door. He gave his hair a cursory swipe and then wrapped the towel around his hips. He needed to throw on some clothes that didn’t smell like beer and then collapse on to the sofa, maybe catch the ABC News on TV if he hadn’t missed it already.

  He stopped in the doorway to his bedroom and let out a tired sigh. Yep, that was the sum of his plans for the entire evening. Hang out his sodden clothes and watch the news. Yeah and that other thing. Try not to think too much about Anna Morelli. In the dark of last night, when he’d gone to bed alone, all he could smell on his sheets was her perfume and damn it if he didn’t want her all over again.

  But she was back in Adelaide, having driven off in that crazy red sports car of hers saying she needed time to think. Joe believed thinking was highly overrated. Sometimes, you just had to go with your gut. Sure, you needed smarts to back you up. But thinking too much led to over-thinking, which led to being paralysed by choices.

  Not that this was his problem at the moment. He didn’t have too many and the one he’d chosen had turned into a spectacular failure. If only he didn’t still smell faintly like beer, he might have wanted to pull the top off one. Instead, he grabbed a pair of boxers from the drawer and then spotted his favourite jeans in a crumpled pile on the floor. He dragged them off the carpet and shook out the legs to slide into the worn denim.

  That’s when he saw it.

  Anna’s necklace. It caught the overhead light and glistened on the carpet. Joe crouched down to pick it up and slowly stood, holding it up to the light to make sure. It was hers all right, the slim chain with the delicate round medallion hanging from it. He dropped it into his palm and clenched his fingers tight.

  ‘Well, waddya know.’ He found his glasses on his bedside table and slipped them on so he could see more clearly. The clasp was still intact, but the fine chain had broken an inch away from it. It must have happened sometime during the night when they were sleeping. Or when they weren’t, Joe thought with a smile.

  Joe didn’t believe in signs. The zodiac. Religion of any kind. Long-range weather forecasts or political opinion polls. But surely, this had to be a sign. He felt his face crease in a smile and he could have sworn there was some warm inner glow happening in his chest, one that usually followed the consumption of lots of fine scotch. He slipped the necklace into the small pocket on the inside of his wallet, pressed the flap down, and decided then and there what he would do with his nex
t day off.

  CHAPTER

  32

  It took Joe more than an hour and a half to make it from Middle Point to Anna’s surgery, even though he was heading in the opposite direction to most of the Saturday morning traffic. Cars were filing past him on the opposite side of the road in droves, all heading down to the McLaren Vale wine district or the south coast to take in a sunny autumn day.

  He laughed to himself at the thought of a one and a half hour commute. In Sydney it took people that long simply to get to work. In Adelaide, an hour and a half’s journey from smack bang in the middle of the ’burbs and you could be dipping your feet into the waters off Middle Point with a cold beer in your hand.

  Not that he’d had much time to do any of that lately. He hadn’t even managed to squeeze in a surf in the morning before work. Lizzie was slowly getting him into the swing of working at the pub, and he’d managed to leave work every day that week relatively unscathed. She’d given him the weekend off, saying she didn’t want to risk the pub’s reputation by slotting him behind the bar on a Saturday night.

  ‘The netballers will eat you alive,’ she’d warned.

  He’d made a phone call to Anna’s surgery to find out what her consulting times were, booked the last appointment of the morning under the name ‘John Holmes’ and driven away from the beach.

  ‘He’s doing beautifully, Sarah, and I swear he has the chubbiest cheeks and blondest hair I’ve ever seen.’

  Anna smiled at the new mum sitting at the side of her desk and then turned her attention back to baby Max. She found his soft toes and gave them another tickle, which elicited giggles of delight. Anna smiled at him, his blue eyes smiling back at her, and her belly tightened. She saw lots of babies in her practice, had lost count of how many over the years, but today this little man was getting her right where it hurt.